Mail-handling device.



MIMI l k W" J. H. BUCHANAN.

MAIL HANDLING DEVICE.

APPLICATION IILED 123.22, 1910.

Patented Aug. 9,1910.

J. H. BUCHANAN. MAIL HANDLING DEVICE. APPLICATION FILED APR. 22, 1910.

Patented Aug. 9, 1910.

2 sums-SHEET 2.

JOHN H. BUCHANAN, OF ASHLEY, PENNSYLVANIA.

MAIL-HANDLING DEVICE.

Specification of Letters Patent.

Patented Aug, 9, 1910.

Application filed April 22, 1910. SeriaL No. 557,062.

To all whom it may concern:

Be it known that I, JOHN H. BUCHANAN, citizen of the United States,residing at Ashley, in the county of Luzerne and State of Pennsylvania,have invented certain new and useful Improvements in Mail-HandlingDevices, of which the following is a specification.

This invention comprehends certain new and useful improvements inapparatus for transferring mail to and from moving trains, and theinvention has for one of its primary objects a simple, durable andefficient construction of mail handling mechanism designed to beembodied in a railway mail car and so arranged that it will be positiveand practically automatic in its action to receive the mail bag from acrane or the like alongside of the track and to subsequently andautomatically swing a mail bag out from the car so that it will becaught by the crane or other track apparatus and deposited at thestation without any liability of injury to the bag or mail mattercontained therein.

The invention also has for its object a bag holding device embodyingarms which will be automatically swung out of the way or moved toaninoperative and out-of-the-way position, as soon as the bag has beenstripped therefrom, and the invention also has for its object a bagholding device embodying upper and lower arms, the lower arm being heldin engagement with the bag in operative horizontal position when swungout from the 'car and the upper arm being likewise held against thetension of a spring in lowered operative position when in outstandingrelation to the car and being automatically pulled upwardly to aninoperative position as soon as the bag has been stripped from the arms.

A further object of the invention is an apparatus of this character inwhich the spring is so arranged that it will only exert a tension on theupper arm when such arm has been moved out from the car, the parts beingso constructed and correlated that when the upper arm has been swungwithin the car its springwill be relaxed and the arm will be permittedto assume a horizontal position in readiness to have a bagsecuredthereto.

With these and other objects in view as will more fully appear as. thedescription proceeds, the invention consists in certain constructions,arrangements and combinations of the parts that'I shall hereinafterfully describe and claim.

For a full understanding of the invention, reference is to be had to thefollowing description and accompanying drawings in which:

Figure 1 is a perspective view illustrating the parts of my invention intheir operative position secured within the door-way of a rail way mailcoach; Fig. 2 is a side elevation of the bag holding arms, said armsbeing illustrated in full lines in their operative position; Fig. 3 is alongitudinal sectional View of part of the device, portions being shownin side elevation and the arms being in their retracted position; Fig. 4is a top plan view looking down on the uppermost arm and showing thesame in different positions in full lines and in dotted lines; and, Fig.5 is a fragmentary perspective view of the bag catching hook.

Corresponding and like parts are referred to in the followingdescription and inclicated in all the views of the accompanying drawingsby the same reference characters.

Referring to the drawings and now particularly to Fig. 1, the numeral 1designates the bottom sill of the framework of my improved mail handlingapparatus which is designed to be located within the door-way of a railway mail coach, the ends of the sill being upwardly turned as indicatedat 2 to form standards for some of the actuating parts.

Supported by and between the standards 2 and secured thereto in anydesired way is a horizontally extending tubular casing 3, in which a rod4 is mounted for a longitudinal movement, the said rod being held at onelimit of its movement by an expansion spring 5 bearing against the rodat one end and also bearing against a hinged cover plate 6 secured by ascrew or similar fastening device to the outer wall of one of thestandards 2 so as to swing over and close the opening in one end of thecasing back of the spring 5.

Mounted to turn and slide on the casing 3 is a sleeve 7 provided withlongitudinal flanges 8 between which is secured an extension plate 9slotted to receive a shank 10 of a spring detentll, the said shank beingsecured to the plate by a set-screw 12 as best illustrated in Figs. 1and 5. The detent 11 is forked at one end as indicated at 13 and vin thecrotch of the detent, all liability of j 29 with the wall of a socketformed in the straddles the inner edge of a bag receiving hook 14 whichmay be formed as an integral extension of the plate 9. It will thus beseen that when the hook 14 is extended in operative position, the bagcaught by the same will strike the detent I1 and snap the samebackwardly so as to be securely held any rebounding action and theconsequential accidental droppin of the bag being thereby eftectuallyprecluded. As above stated, the sleeve is mounted both to turn and slideon the casing 3, and said sleeve is formed with a bayonet slot 15designed to receive a pin 16 which is secured to the rod 4 and whichprojects out through a longitudinal slot 17 formed in the casing 3. Thisbayonet slot admits of a one-quarter turn being given to the sleeve 7which carries the bag receiving hook 14.

The rod 4 is provided at its end opposite to the spring 5 with a trigger18 which projects upwardly through a longitudinal slot 19 formed in thecasing 3 and which is designed for locking engagement with a trip arm 20secured to a vertically disposed spindle 21 which is mounted for arotary movement about a horizontal axis, and a limited vertical movementalso on the brackets 22 and 23 formed on the adjacent standard 2 andextending inwardly therefrom. The spindle 21 carries upper and lower bagholding arms 24 and 25 which carry at their free ends spring pressed bagholding fingers 26 and 27 respectively. Each of the bag holding'arms ispivotally connected at one end to swing about a horizontal axis in abracket 28, the said upper and lower brackets being extendedperpendicularly from the spindle 21 and the upper arm is arranged formovement from a horizontal position upwardly to a vertical position,while the lower arm is movable from a horizontal position downwardly tothe vertical position. The movement of each arm is limited in onedirection, that is, when it reaches a horizontal position by theengagement of a rear extension bracket which carries such arm as bestindicated in Fig. 3. The, upper arm 24 is se-- cured. in any desired wayto one end of a contractile spring 30 and the said spring is in turnconnected at its other end to the extending end 31 of a slack spring 32which is coiled upon a post 33 which projects in wardly from theadjacent standard 2; the parts are so arranged that when the spindle 21is turned so as to carry the arms 24 and 25 to an extended positionrelative to the door-way, the springs 30 and 32 will be placed inposition and thereby have a tend- 'ency to swing the arm 24 upwardly.But when the arms 24 and 25 are within the doorway, that is in aninoperative position,

the spring 30 will be slack as indicated in full lines in Fig. 3 and indotted liiies in: Fig. 4 and the end 31 of the spring 32 will berelaxed, so that the arm 24 will be permitted to rest in""its horizontalposition thereby easily admitting of the upper ring of a bag or sack tobe slipped over the finger 26. The lower arm 25 has a tendency to swingdownwardly by gravity but is permitted to do so only when in extendedposition, after the bag has been stripped therefrom. In the retractedand inoperative position of this arm it will be held in a substantiallyhorizontal position by resting upon the sill 1 sothatafter the bag hasbeen suspendedfrom the upper arm 24, the operator may raise the lowerarm slightly and slip the ring of the bag upon the finger'27. The lowerarm 25 is automatically moved from its inoperative downwardly extendingand vertical position (as the spindle'21 is turned to move the bagholding arms inwardly into the doorway of a car) by riding upwardly andinwardly upon an inclined plate 34 which is secured to the sill 1 andwhich projects outwardly and clownwardly therefrom, as best illustratedin Figs. 1 and 2.

The spindle21 is encircled by a coil spring 35 having a tendency topartially rotate the spindle in a direction to carry the arms outwardlyand the spindle is held as against such movement by the engagement ofthe trip arm 20 with the trigger 18. As soon as the rod 4 is moved in adirection to release the trigger from the trip arm, the spring 35 willbe permitted to act so as to turn the spindle 21 and swing the bagholding arms out of the car and to their operative positions. In orderto lock the spindle with the arms in this position, the spindle isprovided with a lug 36 which is adapted to drop down into a slot 37which communicates with the opening in the lower bracket in which thelower end of the spindle 21 is fitted. To release the lug 36 from theslot 37 I have provided a foot pedal 38 one end of which passes upwardlyand into the opening in said bracket so as to engage the spindle 21 andraise it whereupon the handle 39 may be grasped and the spindle turnedaround so as to move the bag holding arms into the door way of the car.

From the foregoing description in connection with the accompanyingdrawing, the operation of my improved mail handling apparatus will beapparent.

In the practical use of the device, the arms are held in their retractedposition within the doorway of a car by means of engagement of the triparm 20 with the trigger 18 and a bag is then suspended by the arms. Atthe required time, the handle of the bag catching hook is grasped andthe hook turned around so as to project outside of the car and thesleeve of the hook is moved in a direction to pull the rod 4 so as torelease the trigger 18 from the trip arm 20 whereupon the spindle 21will turn and the bag holding arms will be swung out from the car. Assoon as the bag is stripped from the arm as by a crane, a portion ofwhich is indicated at 40 in Fig. 1, the lower arm will drop or swingdownwardly and the upper arm will be pulled upwardly by its spring, botharms being thereby moved automatically and immediately thereafter, thebag re ceiving hook will engage the bag which is intended to be carriedby the crane and which is designed to be lodged within the car. To raisethe device it is only necessary for the operator to depress the footpedal 38 so as to raise the spindle 21 and swing the spindle around soas to carry the arm within the car, the lowermost arm will in thismovement ride upwardly in the plate 34 and finally rest upon the sill,while the upper arm can easily swing downwardly to a horizontal positionready for engagement by another bag, as the tension springs of the armare released as above described when the arm is in its inner position.

WVhile the accompanying drawings show the preferred embodiment of myinvention it is to be understood that various changes may be made in theconstruction, arrangement and proportions of the parts of the devicewithout departing from the scope of the invention as defined by theappended claims.

Having thus described the invention, what is claimed as new is:

1. A mail handling apparatus, comprising upper and lower bag holdingarms, means for carrying said arms into and out of operative position,means for automatically moving said arms out of the way when a bag isstripped therefrom, and means for automatically maintaining the lastnamed means for the upper arm inoperative when said arm is in aninoperative position.

2. A mail handling apparatus comprising upper and lower bag holdingarms, a support therefor, means for swinging said arms in and out, meansfor automatically raising the upper arm when the bag is strippedtherefrom, and means for maintaining the raising means in an inoperativeposition when the upper arm is in its inner position.

3. A mail handling apparatus comprising upper and lower bag holdingarms, means for swinging said arms in and out, a spring tending to swingthe upper arm upwardly when the bag is stripped from the arms, and meansfor holding the spring slack when the arm is in its inner position.

4. A mail handling apparatus, comprising upper and lower verticallymovable bag holding arms, a spindle adapted to. carry said arms in andout, a support for said spindle, a spring carried by said support andanother spring connected to the first named spring and to the upperarms, the

springs being arranged to exert a tension in an opposite direction onthe upper arm when the latter is in its outer position and beingarranged for relaxing when the arm is in its inner position.

5. A mail handling apparatus comprising upper and lower bag holdingarms, a spindle supporting said arms and adapted to carry the same inand out, a support in which the spindle is journaled, a post projectingfrom said support, a spring coiled around said post and having anupwardly projecting end and another spring connected to the first namedspring and to the upper arm, for the purpose specified.

6. A mail handling apparatus comprising bag holding arms, means forswinging said arms in and out, the lower arms being adapted to swingdownwardly when a bag is stripped from the arm and an inclined plateupon which the lower arm is adapted to ride when the arms are movedinwardly for the purpose specified.

In testimony whereof, I aflix my signature in presence of two witnesses.

JOHN H. BUCHANAN. [1 s.]

Witnesses:

WV. N. WOODSON, FREDERICK S. S'rrrT.

